Popular posts from this blog

Ndingangakhe
ndisitheleKwimpazamo
zonkeNdibe
nemizuzu ndedwa ekuthandazeni I didn’t
know how to write about Lalela and my experience of visiting this place until I
read a chapter from bell hook’s Belonging:
a culture of place. My friend and her partner live on a farm in
Magaliesburg. They named the farm Lalela and opened it up for friends to visit
and experience life differently from city life. I have been here for almost
three weeks and I came with the sole purpose of finding some peace and quiet.
And I have experienced it in abundance. In her
chapter “Touching the earth” bell reflects on the relationship she has with the
earth. I had read this essay when I first read the book but the essay reads
differently now that I have experienced what bell writes about beyond the
initial reading and understanding. Here are a few extracts from the essay which
resonate with what I have experienced at Lalela as well as what has emerged in
the conversations I’ve had with other people who have been a…

I first become conscious of what it means
to be umakoti when I was in high school. I had finally been asked to be a
bridesmaid by a young woman who sang in the church choir. Being a bridesmaid
meant more than looking pretty on the wedding day. We were also part of the
traditional wedding where the bride is officially introduced to the groom’s
family. There isn't an English equivalent for the word makoti; perhaps "new bride" comes close. The most illuminating part of the wedding
for black women is the traditional wedding. Most black couples have two
weddings: the white wedding and the traditional wedding. For amaXhosa the
introduction takes on many forms but it involves the bride getting a new name
(igama lasemzini), she wears a new outfit and uyayalwa: she is given advice by
the groom’s family, mostly a list of expectationsand sometimes rules about the home that she
needs to abide by as the new bride in the home. She is expected to sit
demurely, making no eye contact as h…

I leave for
work at about 6:30am every morning. Everyday, without fail, I will see black
people walking somewhere or waiting for a bus or taxi. On my route, I don’t see
any white people doing the same. All the white people are in their cars or
jogging or walking their dogs (although this has become the work of the
gardener as I’m seeing many black men walking dogs at strange hours the
same way I see black women pushing prams with white babies).

This observation
isn’t really revolutionary because anyone who lives in the suburbs knows these
dynamics (I drive through Emmerentia, Greenside, Parktown, Saxonwold, Houghton, Norwood and sometimes through Melville): in the morning, we see the black people arrive to clean white people’s
houses and offices; and in the evening we see the exodus when they return to
their homes in townships and far off places where the black majority lives. I’m
becoming impatient with this form of mobility because it highlights how very
little has changed in terms …